Daimler offered to sell a 7.5% stake in the Airbus parent to the German government

Daimler AG offered to sell a 7.5% stake in the Airbus parent to the German government, a cabinet source told Reuters. It had only been a week ago that the company was charged with insider trading by Paris judges leading a 5-year probe into sales of shares in EADS.

The source confirmed this to be true but he said that the government has yet to make a decision. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be meeting with ministers on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting next Wednesday to discuss the offer, the source said.

The charges stem from the French judges’ questions raised to Daimler about its decision to sell a 7.5% stake in EADS in April 2006, two months before the parent of Airbus SAS disclosed production delays on the A380, the world's biggest passenger plane.

The Financial Times report, which cited two sources, revealed that Merkel will discuss a proposal to altogether buy 15% of EADS, half from Daimler and half from a banking group.

Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said in an interview with Reuters Insider TV that there’s a possibility for the carmaker to make a change to its holding in EADS. But he clarified that there has been no decision yet. Daimler and EADS declined to comment on the report. [via autonews - sub. required]